Burlesque sans risqué comes to Lode

MURPHYS - The burlesque revival that began in New York City a decade ago and spread to Seattle and San Francisco in recent years has arrived in Calaveras County.

Dana M. Nichols

MURPHYS - The burlesque revival that began in New York City a decade ago and spread to Seattle and San Francisco in recent years has arrived in Calaveras County.

The Dollhouse Dames, a troupe led by Seattle transplant Nicole Sass, is rehearsing for a series of shows that begins Friday at the Black Bart Playhouse in Murphys.

Sass said audiences can expect a lively revue of dance, song and comedy but no nudity. She said her troupe's performance draws more on the burlesque tradition of the late 1800s and early 1900s, when shows were attended by mixed audiences.

"We're more in boy shorts and bikini tops," Sass said. "Nothing you'd have to cover the kids' eyes for."

Historians say burlesque got a sleazy reputation during the Great Depression and later decades when it shifted to largely striptease-oriented shows that were attended primarily by men. The word "burlesque" is French for a jest or mockery.

Burlesque shows in the mid-1800s were often parodies that made fun of opera, Shakespearean plays and other highbrow entertainment. Traveling burlesque troupes became mainstream entertainment for working and middle classes in the United States and Britain.

Yet burlesque also tried to push the envelope, particularly if that meant thumbing its nose at the tastes of snobbish elites. Performers who started their careers in burlesque and later went on to be celebrities in the age of movies and broadcast include the Marx Brothers, Red Skelton, Gypsy Rose Lee, Milton Berle, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

By the 1960s and '70s, burlesque had largely disappeared from stages.

Starting in the mid-1990s, however, new burlesque troupes formed in major cities. Sass was briefly a member of the Le Chat Noir troupe in Seattle.

Others troupes include The Velvet Hammer Burlesque in Los Angeles and San Francisco's Famous Burlesque Review.

Like earlier burlesque performers, members of the Dollhouse Dames have chosen stage names that are flamboyant, silly or provocative.

"My character is Kittie Kaboodle," said Kate Gonzales, 19, of Valley Springs.

Deborah Karr, 48, calls herself Sparky McCallister. She said "Sparky" comes from the name of the first electric chair in Oklahoma, which her great-grandfather installed. Identical twins Amber and Jessica Mouser, 21, call themselves Trixie and Dixie Del Sol.

But while some things stay the same, there are some differences between the original mainstream form of burlesque and the way it has been revived in recent years, said Macelle Mahala, an assistant professor of theater at University of the Pacific.

"I think it is being associated with more-liberal performance practices," Mahala said. "Burlesque is being practiced by a lot of feminists and gay/lesbian/transsexual people as a way to reclaim their sexuality."

Every contemporary burlesque troupe sets its own formula. The Dollhouse Dames won't be doing the kind of acts seen in San Francisco or Los Angeles, where performers wear little more than body paint, Sass said.

But they will play with the idea of local standards in one skit involving a pair of fan dancers. Sass said the two dancers will argue about how revealing a striptease can be in Murphys, with the more cautious dancer using her fan to conceal as the more daring dancer tries to reveal more skin.

Murphys residents, who are only now learning about the Dollhouse Dames, haven't decided whether they'll check out the show.

"It might be interesting," said Roy Kreager, a past president of the Murphys Community Club. "I would have to talk it over with my significant other."

Michelle Plotnick, president of the Murphys Business Association, was initially cautious, saying she had no objection to a burlesque show as long as it was inside but that she couldn't speak for the association. Upon learning that the show would have no nudity but lots of song, dance and humor, she softened.